Post: You Must Call Me "Deda"

I promise to write a post that talks more about my students and what it has been like teaching here in Georgia, but first I want to give you this small story about one of my co-teachers.

Last week was my first full week of teaching.   Completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of students and classes.  Completely exhausted every afternoon after school.  (I enjoyed it anyways, but I have some work cut out for me!)   My schedule was given to me written entirely in the Georgian language….so I spent the 10 minutes between each of my classes  wandering the four floors through SCREAMING children trying to find my next room assignment (clinging to my phrase in broken and poorly pronounced Georgian:  “Where is” to help me out—which was only sometimes successful).   

By the middle of the week, culture shock had gotten to me pretty strong one day.  But here was my help--  

After my classes were finished on Wednesday, I stayed in the teacher’s conference room because it was silent.  I was expecting all of my co-teachers to leave because they also seemed exhausted, but one of them, Marina, just sat in a desk—doing nothing at all.  I guessed that she wanted to speak with me, so I picked the desk right across from her.   When I had first met her during my training, my initial impression was that she didn’t like to smile.  But now she began to ask me about my life and host family in Georgia, how I liked the classes, whether or not I was feeling tired.  She spoke quietly but everything she said seemed deliberate.   She kept asking me, “you see” as if to constantly reassure me.  She began talking to me about Georgia’s history and told me that the people are, most of the time, incredibly generous.  But, she also warned me not to trust everyone.  She was definitely smiling for me now--  insisted that if I ever needed help, I must ask her.  “From now on,” she told me, “You must call me Deda.”   

Deda means “Mother” in Georgian.